In a continuing quest for personalization Google seems to be turning the web into a “logged-in web”, where you receive personalized results for queries based on whether or not you are logged into an external service/platform. In this screenshot Google shows me four of my Flickr contacts for the query Flickr. Google knows I am… Read more Google presents “the logged-in web”

Introduction by Geert Lovink Google Research What is the current state of Google research? The first phase of Google research mainly dealt with the mystery of the algorithm and Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google has since grown into a multi-faceted corporation which requires a move beyond the first phase. The second phase… Read more Beyond Privacy: Siva Vaidhyanathan on the Hubris of Google

Opening lecture of the New Media Masters Graduation Day. University of Amsterdam, 21 September 2010. Joris van Hoboken, PhD candidate at the Institute for Information Law at the University of Amsterdam, talked about what Google knows and what Google wants. Google is no longer just a search engine, it is now an extraordinary collection of… Read more Joris van Hoboken – Google knows your unknown knowns

I’m not a big fan of Google’s new result page which seems to favor freshness and a ubiquity of entry points over relevance. Or, in other words, it is increasingly referring to itself (Google News, Updates, YouTube) for results as may be seen in the following picture: Let’s look at the ranking of the results:… Read more Google has become self-referential

Sick and tired of using Arial, Verdana and Georgia on your blog? Ok, I must admit, I love Georgia and I’ve been using it for years but after a while you want something else. There simply aren’t enough websafe fonts that look good and are compatible. There are several solutions like replacing the header with… Read more Beautify your blog with the Google Font API